Purple patch.

Good afternoon readers.
This week on the blog it has been all things purple. We've had colour inspirations, critical analysis and funny examples of found purple prose. This all leaves me in a bit of a cul-de-sac for ideas and so, as I like to post a Sunday poem, I've found inspiration in the over-elaborate dreams my girlfriend has been sharing with me. I think this may also double as chemical writing advice.

Purple.

My girl is quitting fags again
She is showing me the way
She is mad and stressed and I confess
I'm being careful what I say.

On her arm she wears a magic patch
A steady stream of nicotine
It helps her cope but there's a catch
She is having purple dreams.

Fleshed out in vivid detail
Whilst clutching at the quilt
She sleep talks about lizards
Coming for her wearing stilts.

The alligators swim the floor
She mans the Enterprise
There are walking, talking Russian dolls
And jars of fireflies.

It brings out a kind of madness
Such surreal thoughts in her head
So when stuck for inspiration
Wear a purple patch to bed.


Thanks for reading,
S.

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Purplified Prose

 by Ashley Lister

 This is my current idea for a writing exercise. Take an existing line of fiction and purplify it. I might need a better word than purplify. The idea is to take a piece that’s been published and then add all the ornate bells and trimmings of typical purple prose to show how artificial these affectations can appear on the printed page. The exercise will show how an abundance of adjectives can make a piece of work stand out as being too heavily textual or show that the writer is not skilled in their craft.

To illustrate the point I'm trying to make, this is from Orwell’s 1984:

The thought police would get him just the same

This is the same idea coloured purple –

The thought police – cruel, omnipotent, overpowering, bullying, mindless, manipulative, Machiavellian, monstrosity that they were, would track him down like a rabid dog and then cage him and torture him and rob him of all that he considered to be dear as part of his own personal self, just the same.

This from Stoker’s Dracula:

"I am here to do your bidding, Master. I am your slave..."

This is the same idea coloured purple –

"I am here, in the present, in this moment, living and breathing at your service, intent only doing your bidding my most wonderful, beloved and beautiful master. For whatever purpose you need, in whatever way I can be of service, I am destined to be your slave..."

This is from Fifty Shades of Grey

His tone is so... so directorial, his usual control freak. I imagine him as an old-time movie director wearing jodhpurs, holding an old-fashioned megaphone and a riding crop. The image makes me laugh out loud.

This is the same idea coloured purple –

His tone is so... so directorial, his usual control freak. I imagine him as an old-time movie director wearing jodhpurs, holding an old-fashioned megaphone and a riding crop. The image makes me laugh out loud.

On a serious note, if you’d like to share your purple prose in the comments box, it would be fun to read it.

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Putative Purple .....

I have read the other entries on the blog this week with great interest.  I had never heard of the term "Purple Prose" before and, as ever, I am finding the process of writing on the blog extremely educational. It made me realise that I am guilty of writing great swathes of purple in to my poetry from time to time, but now that I am aware of it I can remedy it. If I choose to of course. Call me perverse if you will, but I kind of like it!

There is little that I could add to the subject of Purple Prose when it has already been covered so comprehensively thus far, but I though I would post a little something from some years ago when I attempted to start writing a story. Stupidly, I started writing it without any real idea of where I was going with it.  No particular idea of plot, characters, anything really. I thought I would just sit down in front of the computer and type, see where it took me.  Not far, trust me. It amounted to the cheesiest single side of A4 in history:


Darkness.  All enveloping like a blanket, feeling smothered beneath its inky black folds.  Where was she?  In a darkened room without windows, or was it just night time on a cloudy moonless night?  The only thing she could be certain of was that she was inside.  But what?  Senses heightened due to her lack of visibility, she strained to listen for any sounds that might permeate the gloom.  Nothing.  Perfect stillness greeted her, not even the sounds of passing traffic in the distance.  She racked her brain to think where on earth she could possibly be that would be so dark and silent, but even she couldn’t imagine where she was or what was to befall her ……..


As Melanie left her flat that morning after agreeing to go with her friends on a “trip”, she couldn’t help but feel that she shouldn’t have said she would.  Her heart sank as she remembered the conversation:  “So there’ll be Charlotte, Amy, Siobhan, Me and you, if you’ll come along”, wheedled her friend Katie.  “Please say you’ll come, Mel, I don’t think I can put up with the other three if you’re not there, especially under the circumstances!”.

“Katie, that’s not a nice thing to say about your friends.  I dread to think what you say about me when I’m not there!”  Mel replied.

Katie sighed and said:“You know what I mean, Mel.  I just feel like the odd one out sometimes what with Amy and Siobhan being twins and Charlotte wanting to be their triplet!!”

“Ok, Ok, I’ll come.  I just don’t see the appeal of trouping around some old house like international tourists because it’s ‘historical‘!” Melanie retorted.  She had never appreciated architecture or history much, and failed to see why they all had to go with Siobhan and Amy to their fusty old relic of an Uncle’s.  “Alright”, she thought, “it may be the reading of his Will, be we don’t need to go en-mass surely?” 

With a strange look in her eyes, Katie came back with: “Come on Mel, you know fine well that everyone who has been summoned has to ’view’ his property before anything will be read out.  Their Uncle Henry was very particular and proud of his heritage, you can‘t blame a man for wanting to show off a little, even after his death!”.

So that evening, when they arrived at Uncle Henry’s, Melanie’s sour expression spoke volumes.  It was just as she imagined it would be, big rusty gates, oversized Manor house which was far too large for just one inhabitant, and overgrown and unloved gardens.  She knew the old man hadn’t been able to keep up with the gardening in his twilight years and had also let the elements ravage the house itself.  Many years earlier, due to an over fondness for the horses, Uncle Henry had been forced to let his two remaining ‘staff’ go, leaving the place to fall in to rack and ruin.  Thankfully, he managed to hang on to his house, although everything else was sold to pay off his debts.  Big beautiful furniture, carved and ornate, which had been in the family for generations had been auctioned off, along with all but one of his cars, having been sold to collectors.  Left with only enough basic furniture to live in three rooms of the house, the remainder, with the exception of a few decades of dust, was empty.


So there you go, some lovely examples of purple patches in a failed attempt to write a story. To this day, I still haven't figured out the rest of it. Hee hee.

Thanks for reading. x

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Purpureus Pannus

There is a tendency to assume that poetry is a patch of expensively dyed purple cloth, significantly different to the plain shades of everyday language. However, it is this falsehood which sees many new poets (and even those of experience) create work which fails the poet, the poem and the reader. Therefore, I thought I'd examine some of the 'techniques' which, if used excessively and without caution, could cause your poetry to become a little bit too purple.

Complicated Words:

Poetry isn't about replacing ordinary words with those that are more extraordinary, complex or lengthy, yet with a quick right click or a flick through a thesaurus this dangerous and misguided edit is fairly easy to implement.

Adjective & Adverb Strings:

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with adjectives and adverbs, but rather the risk is encountered when they are either used excessively or in a string. Poetry is about being concise, thus to have a string of four adjectives or adverbs - which fail to offer more than the singular modifier - is superfluous, and potentially a step towards making your poem wordy, even purple. For example,

His strong, pungent, heady scent...

           

The swan eased quietly, nervously and slowly through the water...

Purple Substitutions:

This tends to occur through a fear that normal is boring, unimaginative and not poetic enough, thus prompting the poet to substitute for a word or phrase that sounds less common. However, the problems arise when a) the substitution has been made so frequently by others it has almost achieved the status of cliché, or  b) because the substitution is too obscure and thus results in distracting or confusing your reader. An example of each would be:

a) 'red' becomes 'crimson blood'

b) 'heart' becomes 'abrasive organ pumps'

            (from a poem recently published in Maire Claire by Kristen Stewart)

Figurative Overkill:

Before my Creative Writing MA I used to do this excessively. I would place similes and metaphors wherever I could fit them, and yet with each one added the meaning and purpose within my poems was diluted rather than strengthened. I finally realised that one well-placed, well-timed simile / metaphor could illuminate a poem far better than ten -  that less can be more striking and surprising than more.

*          *          *

To illustrate my overall point I have 'purpled up' William Carlos Williams' poem This Is Just To Say (well-known for its brevity).

   

This Is Just To Say

I have devoured greedily

the blushing purple plums

that were residing in

the arctic Eskimo drawer  

and which

 you were probably

 saving patiently

 for morning's first meal

Forgive me, absolve me

they were divinely delicious

so seductively sweet

and so cold like winter

Thank you for reading,

Lara 

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Purple Valentine B*llocks

It's coming to that time of year again on Friday. Valentines day, where we're supposed to love our significant other a bit more and lavish them with lots of hearts, red stuff and Hallmark sentimentality. When really if you love someone then perhaps you should show them throughout the rest of the year. Cynical, moi? I'm not one for over sentimentality for the sake of it. That's not to say I am not emotional, I just don't like buying tat and overpriced cards for a sickeningly cloying rhyme. It all seems a little impersonal. An ex of mine told me he spent ages looking through the card shops for 'the perfect verse which said how I feel.' Yes I'm an ungrateful moo but I'd much rather he'd have just written something for me himself, rhyme or not, it didn't have to be sentimental or glowing purple just personal.

Anyway, I digress as usual. Purple prose, I think I've been guilty of it before when I started writing. It's a rite of passage as a writer for some. But it helps when you can identify it. If it's detracting from the message it's almost certainly purple. If it's grandiose and full of too many cliches, it's purple. If it is full of words you frantically changed for a more complicated word, then it's irritating as hell as well as purple. Good description doesn't need complex language to create a picture for the reader, quite the opposite. That's not to say complicated words aren't useful, when it takes the place of several others or no other one will do. But don't send your reader to hunt for a dictionary every other word. It's off putting and you can easily lose the reader.

I think this competition has been mentioned on the blog before but It's worth a go just to get your writing muscles going. The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction (Bulwer Lytton) contest is a competition to challenge you to come up with the most dreadful overwritten introduction to a story. Once you can force yourself to do what you're not supposed to, it then becomes easier to identify when editing your other work. There are examples of previous winners on the site as well as the history of the contest.

But this Valentines day, purple or not, write something personal for your other half. Just go for it. It will be your words with your own feelings, not an off the shelf one size fits all rhyme. I bet it goes down better than the Hallmark verses of purple vomit.

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The see you smile

OK, purple prose, yeah.

Firstly I looked up 'prose' or as I found out, to just write normally. Then I looked up 'purple' which returned various information sites talking about colour. I figured this was not the answer I was looking for, so I typed in 'Purple Prose' and found that it is a piece of writing that is exaggerated and over the top, over flowery or over told.

Then it dawned on me, this week is national by a card week or Valentine's day. This, to me, obviously meant over the top, loved up to the max, romantic prose (see I can use the word now)

So, using my muse as inspiration, I started writing. I think I've written more of a poem to be honest however, it is very much something to be delivered with emotion in a performance with more ham than a pig.

Whatever it is I'm pretty sure I got the purple patches right.

Enjoy

To See You Smile

To see you smile

because of me.

Not to mock,

nor to sympathise,

nor to stand over me with grandeur

controlling my every movement by the sheer whim of your thought.

To see you smile

because of me,

my wit,

or my charm

or because you simply knew I was alive and saw me

bestow some kindness on a stranger for nothing less than your approval.

To see you Smile

because of me

and hear the singing angels

ignited in to the song of a thousand heavens

by the delight radiated from your face

just from having the smallest, most minute, insignificant thought of me

To see you smile

because of me,

is to see more than this or any universe has to offer,

is to be encapsulated by a moment the expunges all light

except that which shows your face

and blesses my eyes with a power far greater than the creator himself

To see you smile

because of me

Is all I ever need to live for.

Nothing, not even the greatest of all the foods and wines

could ever be more intoxicating

than to see you smile,

because of me.

Colin

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